Fun with Trailers

Every June my RWA Chapter does an all day workshop, usually broken down into 4 different mini sessions. This time we had the technically savvy, Anne MacFarlane teaching us about websites and how to create our own using WordPress. Then Stella MacLean extolled the virtues of showing up everyday for your writing whether you felt like it or not. After a tasty lunch at the Redwood Grill, we spent the afternoon with Deb Hale and Jennie Marsland. Deb showed us how psychics could be fun when you apply it to your characters, while Jennie taught us how to make our very own book trailer with Windows MovieMaker.

Now, I’ve been using Windows since it came out and I had never realized it came with MovieMaker. Which may be a good thing since now that I know how to use it (thanks Jennie!), I am completely addicted.

I no sooner arrived home from our workshops than I ran downstairs to the writing room and turned on the computer. My reasoning was that I needed to try this out for myself so I didn’t forget everything Jennie showed us. Of course, she gave us a hand-out explaining everything, but I reasoned I needed to actually ‘do it’ to remember.

I decided on doing a trailer for Book 2 in the Invitation to Scandal series. Now, if I were doing this to use as a publicity / selling tool, I would have to be more careful about using pictures and music that didn’t infringe on anyone’s copyrights, but since I was just making it for personal use, I didn’t worry too much about it. I just wanted a visual inspiration of the book itself. Something I could look at to evoke the theme and mood of the book.

I spent a few hours that night and a few more hours the next day playing around, finding the right wording to tell the story, the most mood-evoking pictures, and of course, the perfect song choice to accompany it as the trailer played.

It was a blast and I loved the end result. What surprised me the most was how the exercise allowed me to really nail down what the story was about. So, of course, now I have to do one for ITS. And then Brimstone. Salvation Falls. I can YouTube pixs or video of the pooch too. And these things can also make great digital photo albums for family and friends…

The possibilities are endless. It’s as addictive as scrapbooking, only with less glue.

Books, Movies and Endless Snow

First up, out on book shelves today and garnering great reviews is Heart of My Heart, a SuperRomance written by my chapter-mate, Stella MacLean. This is Stella's first book to hit the shelves (though not her last!) and definitely worth checking out. Pick up your copy soon, I have a feeling they'll sell fast!

Now, back to the weather: This has been the longest winter in memory. Usually, we don't get too much snow here on the coast until after the Christmas holidays, but this year it started in November and I swear it has been nothing else since. Right up to and including the weekend when we got a little mini snow storm on Friday night. Granted the snow was gone by the next day, but still! It's April for crying out loud!! Sigh...what I wouldn't give for a tropical climate right now.

But thankfully, the sun has been out for two days in a row, the snow is off the ground (I actually whispered that part because I don't want to tempt fate), and I'm sure any day now, Spring will actually start. Any day...

As for revisions: I have finally managed to get Brimstone to under 400 pages. I am closing in, hacking away at the last 100 pages and making steady progress. Although this next chapter needs a complete overhaul where I pull things from chapters up ahead and drag them back. Which will likely mean a nice little bit of reconstruction of later chapters. Oiy. Like the snow, it seems the revisions never end. I am sooooo looking forward to working on something new.

Granted, my something new will actually be something old while I whittle Outlaw Bride down and tighten it up so I can start sending it out again as well. That will give me two completed manuscripts going out into the big bad world this year. Once that's done, it's onto Saving Grace where we get to see what madness Quinn has involved himself in and whether or not he's sobered up since his appearance in Brimstone.

Meanwhile, on other artistic fronts - I went to see the movie Run, Fat Boy, Run starring Sean Pegg. It was by far one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. And not stupid funny, either. It was the characters. All of them, from the smallest secondary character to the lead roles were fantastic. I had a special fondness for the hero's best friend, Gordon, played by Dylan Moran. Hilarious. So if you're looking for a good, funny movie, check it out.